Telematics services have brought a whole new level of connectivity to a driver's in-vehicle experience. Drivers can access email, text messages, media, advertisements, remote applications and a variety of other functionality through connected vehicle services, as well as accessing navigation and more traditional in-vehicle services.
While this presents exciting opportunities and enhances the driving experience, automotive original equipment manufacturers have also taken steps to make telematics systems safe, so that drivers do not become overly distracted by the services available. Vehicles, or servers connected to the vehicles, are capable of estimating how much workload is being placed on a driver at a given time, and using this information to restrict access to services. A simple example is navigation functions being locked out when a vehicle is in motion, or above a certain speed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,092,005 generally relates to a vehicle driving condition prediction device, a warning device using this prediction device, and a recording medium for storing data for prediction, wherein during use of the prediction function of an approach speed of the vehicle to a curve ahead, the acceleration at the present moment is maintained for a condition maintaining period of time, and thereafter the vehicle speed is slowed down at a fixed deceleration, and using such an assumed deceleration pattern a vehicle speed in future is predicted, by which a warning can be given taking the chances of driver's deceleration into consideration.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,487,477 generally relates to an on-board navigation system to provide energy management for an electric vehicle (EV) and a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV). The HEV control strategy of the present invention accommodates the goals of fuel economy while always meeting driver demand for power and maintaining the functionality of the traction motor battery system using battery parameter controllers. In the preferred embodiment of the present strategy, a vehicle system controller tightly integrates the navigation system information with energy management while en route to a known destination. Present vehicle location is continuously monitored, expectations of driver demand are determined, and vehicle accommodations are made. The system can be configured to includes as part of its present vehicle location data on road patterns, geography with date and time, altitude changes, speed limits, driving patterns of a vehicle driver, and weather. The vehicle accommodations can be configured to use discrete control laws, fuzzy logic, or neural networks.
U.S. Application Number 2013/079964 generally relates to a communication and analysis system that can manage data operations with a vehicle centric system with a planned route path. A vehicle that is in a communications link with a network can also manage its activities based on real time, historical and predictive knowledge, without having this all knowledge processing on board. Such data processing would include a cluster analysis of geo-spatial, internal functions and operator specific requirements. The rule based system would also incorporate the use patterns of a specific vehicle, or a specific user. A vehicle operator or vehicle multiple operators could share or upload information that would assist with efficient data processing and display, including fuel conservation and time management. Cluster weighting patterns can be assigned based on activities as efficient operation, safe travel and navigation.